Obama citizenship denial
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===1981 Pakistan trip=== | ===1981 Pakistan trip=== | ||
Obama travelled to Pakistan, back in 1981, to visit family. The Birthers insist that travel to Pakistan in 1981 was not possible using a US passport and therefore Obama must have been travelling using another passport - presumably from a country with strong Muslim ties. Of course this is mostly rubbish. There were no restrictions in force at the time.<ref>http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/passport.asp</ref> | Obama travelled to Pakistan, back in 1981, to visit family. The Birthers insist that travel to Pakistan in 1981 was not possible using a US passport and therefore Obama must have been travelling using another passport - presumably from a country with strong Muslim ties. Of course this is mostly rubbish. There were no restrictions in force at the time.<ref>http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/passport.asp</ref> | ||
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| + | ===The Kenyan birth certificate=== | ||
| + | Apparently, some attention whore <ref>By the way, the person happens to be Orly Taitz</ref> had found the "jackpot" of Obama's Kenyan birth certificate where [[WorldNetDaily|World<s>Net</s>NutDaily]] made a big news about it.<ref>http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=105764</ref> However, many people from reality have pointed out some major flaws in the birth certificate <ref>For example, the document listed his place of birth is at Mombassa, but that city was [http://washingtonindependent.com/53494/birthers-latch-onto-forged-kenyan-birth-certificate part of Zanzibar] at that time</ref><ref>http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/kenyacert.asp</ref>, and it's quite unusual for a Kenyan birth certificate is issued in [[Australia]]<ref>[http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/08/04/australia_certificate/ Oh look! Obama happens to be an Aussie!] *sarcasm*</ref>. It happens that an unknown blogger was responsible for the forged document and punked the birthers.<ref>http://washingtonindependent.com/54104/punkin-the-birthers-priceless</ref><ref>[http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=106220 Even WorldNutDaily admits it!</ref> | ||
==Eligibility bill== | ==Eligibility bill== | ||
Revision as of 12:45, 18 August 2009
| Not just a river in Egypt |
| A dirty dozen gems |
Obama citizenship denial is a phenomenon that began during the 2008 US Presidential campaign, started by bitter Hillary Clinton supporters and the usual far-right conspiracy theorists, in an attempt to discredit Barack Obama's presidential campaign by claiming that he was not born in the United States and thus was ineligible for the presidency.[1]
Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1961 to an immigrant Kenyan father and American mother. Spin propagated on conservative talk radio and other illicit media outlets claim that: Obama was not born in Hawaii, or that Obama was a "dual citizen" at birth (even if born in Hawaii) because his father was a Kenyan citizen at the time of Barack II's birth. In response, the Obama campaign created a website called FighttheSmears.com. On the site is published a scanned copy of Obama's short-form birth certificate.[2] He later allowed factcheck.org to handle and photograph it. However, for some idiots, that wasn't enough to prove that Obama was born in the U.S. This tempest in a teapot led to the State of Hawaii confirming to the press the weekend before Election Day that it did indeed hold Obama's long-form certificate, a sure and indisputable indication that Obama was born in Hawaii and was thus a "natural-born citizen" as required by the Constitution.[3]
Despite the "facts", many Americans still insist on following the "spin".
These people were largely ignored until the summer of 2009 when, with a dearth of news and still 168 hours to fill in a week, cable news channels started to give them air time.
Contents |
Birthers
Proponents of the idea that Obama is not qualified to be president are often called "birthers". There are several prominent birthers whose constant - though loopy - agitation keeps this brain-dead story going. If nothing else they serve as amusement to the sane.
Arguments
These are most common objections raised by birthers, mostly in response to the fact that they seriously don't have a leg to stand on regarding their claims that Obama is illegible for the presidency of the United States. The original argument is best explained by WorldNetDaily:
| The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."
|
The birth certificate
At the heart of every birther's claim is the need to see Obama's birth certificate. Despite images being available on the internet, birthers claim that Obama still has not produced adequate evidence he was born in Hawaii - an incredulous stretch of denial by any standards. As a result of the multiple images of a birth certificate being available, a new claim developed - that the "short form" birth certificate produced is supposedly available to anybody, even those born out of state or overseas. This is false.
Nevertheless birthers continually demand that Obama release the original "long form" certificate "with the doctor's signature". This has never been asked of a President before and none have ever had to produce one. The birthers further claim that the certificate of live birth is not good enough to obtain a range of things, from a passport to entry to pre-schools, depending on who is making the claim. However, the certificate produced states at the bottom that it is "Prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding."
The birthers ignore two important facts:
- The requirements for obtaining a certificate of live birth vary from state to state. A Hawaiian certificate would be adequate to obtain a passport.[4]
- The certificate says he was born in Honolulu - if he was born in another state or another country it would state the actual location of his birth on the certificate, not Honolulu.[5]
Birthers also ignore the fact that various people have access to, and have seen, the certificate.
“”I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawai'i State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai'i State Department of Health verifying Barrack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai'i and is a natural-born American citizen.[6]
|
| —Dr. Chiyome Fukino, Director of the Hawai'i State Department of Health, |
Certification of live birth
An early claim was that Obama's birth certificate was a Certification of Live Birth not a Certificate of Live Birth and various claim were made from it not being of the same legal standing, to it being a forgery. Apparently not seeing the word they expected to see confused the birthers. Hawaii is considering changing the name to certificate to bring it into line with other states.
Obama's grandmother
Much has been made of the supposed "fact" that Obama's grandmother says he was born in Kenya. Others have claimed that she has made a "sworn deposition" saying that he was born in Kenya.
This claim is false from beginning to end. There is most certainly no "sworn deposition" but there is a slightly confusing telephone conversation in which the clearest fact is that his family - grandmother included - insist he was born in the USA. Listen to the conversation itself and decide. If this conversation is evidence of anything, it's evidence:
- That Obama was born in the USA.
- Of the lengths to which Obama's detractors will go to in order to distort the facts.
The farcical
Obama's birth was announced in the local press in Hawaii as can be seen here. Despite this corroboration to his Hawaiian birth, the birthers are still not convinced. Whilst WorldNetDaily dismiss it as merely indicating that the birth had been registered in Hawaii, as the newspaper receive the announcement Department of Health Vital Statistics System, and they claim that it was issued with the certificate of live birth, which they already deny is acceptable to them.[7] People on the more nutty end of the scale claim the newspaper clipping is, in fact, a plant.[8] Apparently Obama's parents wanted to make sure he was a "natural-born citizen" more than 47 years ago, in case he ran for president. Naturally, this argument requires a massive stretch of the imagination to even think that the idea is plausible - these people begin to make the 9/11 Truth Movement look positively sane and respectable at this point. Even Chuck Norris finds this hard to believe.[9]
Natural-born citizen
- See the Wikipedia article on Natural born citizen of the United States.
A fair few arguments center around what a natural born citizen actually is. No current US legislation uses the word and it only appears once in the constitution. The only mention of citizenship is in the 14th Amendment, Section 1, Clause 1:
“”All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
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It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, and the jurisdiction of the English sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally established.[10]
Essentially being born in one of the states of the US, as Hawaii had been for two years, makes you eligible to be President once you are 35 and have lived in the country for 14 consecutive years. In addition Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939) also ruled that living outside of the US as a minor did not cause you to lose your birthright citizenship and declared Elg "to be a natural born citizen of the United States."[11] Basically all arguments that center around Obama's father or step-father are irrelevant.
A few birthers have attempted to cite the mid-18th century treatise Le droit des gens[12] by Emerich de Vattel. Vattel claims that an indigène (translated in the 1790s into English using the term "natural-born citizen")[13] is someone born to citizen parents within the nation in question. Exactly how this reconciles with the USA's rather straightforward jus soli policy as stated in the 14th amendment is something of a mystery, especially given that if Law of Nations was truly the law of the land, it would be regularly cited in court cases; considering Vattel was a proponent of "natural law" and the founders worked from English common law, this is a pretty big gap.
1981 Pakistan trip
Obama travelled to Pakistan, back in 1981, to visit family. The Birthers insist that travel to Pakistan in 1981 was not possible using a US passport and therefore Obama must have been travelling using another passport - presumably from a country with strong Muslim ties. Of course this is mostly rubbish. There were no restrictions in force at the time.[14]
The Kenyan birth certificate
Apparently, some attention whore [15] had found the "jackpot" of Obama's Kenyan birth certificate where WorldNetNutDaily made a big news about it.[16] However, many people from reality have pointed out some major flaws in the birth certificate [17][18], and it's quite unusual for a Kenyan birth certificate is issued in Australia[19]. It happens that an unknown blogger was responsible for the forged document and punked the birthers.[20][21]
Eligibility bill
Representative Bill Posey has sponsored a bill, H.R. 1503, to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 requiring the campaign committee to give documents proving a candidate for president's eligibility.[22] So far he has found ten co-sponsors for the bill, although those that have given their reasons say it is to put the matter to rest and are sure that Obama will comply with the bill in 2012.
Why doesn't Obama just release his long form certificate?
In any argument with birthers it is not long before they full back on "why doesn't Obama just release his long form certificate if he has nothing to hide"? This is the typical conspiracy based thinking, they assume Obama's birth certificate is being hidden and then they start "just asking questions".
The answer is Obama's short form certificate is sufficient to prove he was born in Hawaii. No amount of evidence is going to convince birthers that Obama is legitimately the president, if he produces a long form they will claim it is a fake or a government official is being paid bribes. Once sold on a conspiracy the theorists does not have to abandon it, all evidence to the contrary is just part of the larger conspiracy.
The delicious ironies
John McCain, Obama's opponent in the 2008 election, was born in 1936 at the Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone.[23] Without question Panama is definitely a different country than the United States. Granted, his parents were there since his father, a US Navy Admiral was stationed in what was then a US military base (the fact that nobody objected to his candidacy would indicate that being born on US possessions or military instillations overseas is good enough). Also, the 1964 Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater, was born in 1909 in Phoenix, Arizona Territory, which was not even a state until 1912.[24]
The extreme irony
Republican President Chester A. Arthur, spent his one term presidency being dogged by rumours that has was born in Canada, eh? Arthur was born October 2, 1829, in a small town 5 miles outside Fairfield, Vermont. His family moved around a lot and he often lied about the year he was born. During the 1880 presidential campaign, after Arthur was chosen as James Garfield's running mate, the Democrats hired lawyer Arthur Hinman, who set off on a mission to Canada in an attempt to discredit him. Hinman claimed Arthur was born 47 miles further north in Dunham, Quebec and had misappropriated the birth records of a brother that died infancy, who was born in Fairfield. The state of Vermont did not keep birth records before 1857 and neither did the town of Fairfield. Add to this the fact Arthur kept changing the year he was born and you have an even better story then the one about Obama. Arthur never publicly commented on the rumours, which was taken by these paleo-birthers as sure sign of his guilt. Hinman cashed in on the rumours with a book, How a British Subject Became President of the United States.[25]
See also
External links
- All of WorldNutDaily's articles
- Orly Taitz's blog
- Some nuts blog
- The Usurpation Chronicles - another nutter's blog.
- Obama Not Qualified
- Obama Debunks Birther Conspiracy
Footnotes
- ↑ Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the United States Constitution states: "No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."
- ↑ http://fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate
- ↑ http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/presidentialrace/2008337771_rumorside01.html
- ↑ The Department of Health says you can use it for a passport.
- ↑ ConWebWatch - WorldNetDaily's Obama Birth Certificate Lies (retrieved 18th of August 2009)
- ↑ Honolulu Advertiser
- ↑ WND - Hawaiian newspapers don't prove birthplace
- ↑ Forged Obama
- ↑ Chuck Norris kicks the birthers gently.
- ↑ http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=169&invol=649
- ↑ The case of Marie Elizabeth Elg is a very interesting when considering what it means to be a US citizen. Elg was born in 1907 to two Swedish nationals who emigrated the US in 1906, only her father had been naturalized by her birth. She was taken back to Sweden in 1911 by her mother and her father returned in 1922. She emigrated to the US in 1929, with a US passport. In 1935 she was threatened with deportation as an illegal alien. The court ruled that she was a natural born citizen, despite her parent repatriating when she was a minor, as she has chosen to be a US citizen herself as an adult. Full text.
- ↑ Known, somewhat confusingly, as The Law of Nations in English; read it here.
- ↑ And this is the important bit: after the writing of the US Constitution. Earlier translations such as the framers had access to did not have this turn of phrase.
- ↑ http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/passport.asp
- ↑ By the way, the person happens to be Orly Taitz
- ↑ http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=105764
- ↑ For example, the document listed his place of birth is at Mombassa, but that city was part of Zanzibar at that time
- ↑ http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/kenyacert.asp
- ↑ Oh look! Obama happens to be an Aussie! *sarcasm*
- ↑ http://washingtonindependent.com/54104/punkin-the-birthers-priceless
- ↑ [http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=106220 Even WorldNutDaily admits it!
- ↑ Text of the bill.
- ↑ http://www.biography.com/articles/John-McCain-9542249
- ↑ http://www.biography.com/articles/Barry-Morris-Goldwater-9314846
- ↑ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32440943/ns/politics-more_politics//